There have been many advancements in the field of gastric feeding devices, such as gastric button devices. Original devices had only one port that provided direct access to a patient's stomach for food and medication administration. With a single port, the use of the device was somewhat simple and straightforward. Newer devices provide two and three ports. For example, newer gastric feeding buttons have a balloon that allows the device to be maintained in the stomach of a user. A port, which is positioned next to the gastric feeding port, is used for introducing water, or in some cases air, into the balloon. More advanced feeding devices, known as Gastric-Jejunal Buttons or (G-J Buttons) have a third port that is used for jejunal feeding. The addition of additional ports provides a greater potential for user error.
Manufacturers have taken steps to design unique characteristics that are used to distinguish the three ports, including dimensional differences, incompatible connections, color differences, printed labels, and indicators molded directly into the devices themselves. Despite all of these steps to ensure that the feeding button is used properly by the end-user, there remains a risk of an accidental connection to an incorrect port. Due to the types of patients that necessitate these particular medical devices, administering food intended for the jejunal port into the gastric port could lead to vomiting and aspiration of stomach contents—a potentially dangerous situation. Thus, care must be taken by the end user to avoid accidental device misuse.
One target patient population for gastric feeding devices is pediatric patients with poor gastric motility. Since these patients will receive most of their nutrition through the jejunal-access port, they will be connected to a feeding pump most of the day and night. Consequently, the patient's caregivers may have to connect and disconnect adapters to the jejunal-access port at night while the patient is asleep. This gives the caregivers two options—they can either turn on a light in order to visually see the device and its different ports, or they can keep the lights off (trying not to disturb the child's sleep) and attempt to make any necessary adjustments to the device by memory and “feel.”
The first option of turning on the light presents a risk of waking the child, who is already in compromised health. The second option deprives the caregiver of the benefits of many of the unique characteristics that are used to distinguish between the three access ports, as described above, and, thus, presents a risk of accidental connection or administration errors.